Winning and Losing

Here I want to explore some deeper questions of God's purpose in creation and wonder about some of the details and, maybe, invite him to respond. The questions are not quite as radical as the basic schoolboy question of Where did God come from?, but they are in the same league. Most Christians have learnt not to ask them, but any enquiring mind is likely to  ponder them. Let's begin by setting out the basic problem:

Anyone who has supervised a group of children will know that their basic moral concept is fairness.  It's not fair! they often wail. Whether it is sharing cake or accepting punishment, children are happy provided it is done fairly and everyone is treated equally. Where does this idea come from? Not from the Bible. Not from looking around at other people. Some families are beset by illness and adversity others have foreign holidays and continually spend money on their affluent houses. Even among children, some do well at school and get three A's at A level, go to university and fall into a high paid job; while others do badly at school, are made to feel inadequate and finally struggle on the minimum wage. And just to pick one fact from around the world: one born in Africa has a life expectancy far less than in say the US.  Happily Fair Trade has become an issue of conscience in the West, but otherwise the children who wail about fairness grow up to understand that the World is not fair and come to accept it or at least put up with it. Of course some  try to do something about it, but disaster continues to follow disaster.

Then along comes a preacher who tells them that God loves them and sent His Son to die for them and even that this Son said Every hair of your head is numbered. It may be they even got married in a church they had no plans to attend and sang a hymn they may have learned at school: He paints the wayside flower, He lights the evening star. They probably will not know that there was once a verse in All things bright at beautiful which contained the line the The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate. And the chorus (after every verse) concludes The Lord God made them all. We now shy away from  recognising unfairness as part of Creation as our forefathers did. Then, every one knew their place and were expected to accept their lot as part of God's intention. So is unfairness part of God's intention? Clearly He does not paint each wayside flower, nor light each star, individually. Neither does He prevent frost killing the former nor stop the natural evolution of the latter. But He did create the matter and physical laws which lead to both. So arise some of the unanswerable questions. Did He then stand back and allow things to take their course? probably. Does He nudge and redirect the course of all things in the universe? Well yes, some of the situations that affect us, or at least that is how it seems when our prayers are answered. Is He able to predict and know that Fred Smith will be born on October 4th 1843 and live to become no-one of particular note, marrying Eliza Brown and having seven children three of whom die in childbirth and so on with the other countless millions of individual facts about individual lives. In our now global village we know and see much more of what is going on in the World than our forbears could have dreamt of. Is this what it has always been like for God? a continuous newsreel of every moment of everyone's life. Is that what every hair on your head is numbered and not even a sparrow drops from the sky without your Father in heaven knowing about it actually mean? And, unlike us, weeping over the latest natural catastrophe or terrorist act, does He actually do something? Yes, He gives the strength to endure either as required, or by virtue of having included the capacity in our makeup to be called upon when required.  How often I marvel at the strength of those beset by appalling situations in which I cannot conceive of coping. But to be fair* it is also true that there are those (even those who claim to believe in Jesus) who do not cope well: perhaps they live a life of bitterness, perhaps even commit suicide. Why did God not come to their aid? Because there was some barrier that prevented it. Yes the great all powerful God could not breach that barrier. But no I would not describe that barrier as SIN as the evangelicals do, because it is not made of wickedness, or failure to keep the Ten Commandments, or even, as we all do, falling short of the Glory of God. Rather it is a barrier of attitude, a refusal to be open, to be certain one is right, a barrier constructed over time, long before the appalling situation strikes.

A former minister of mine was always saying Christianity is not an insurance policy, by which he meant it did not protect us from all harm. But no insurance policy protects from harm, it compensates for it. Openness to God through Jesus Christ is at least that, but it is also much more. Through the valley of the shadow of death, He is there with us if we are open to His presence. And He can and will lead us upwards out of that valley, not just to the final destination of life after death (just?), but also into a way of dealing with whatever has befallen us in this life.

Life situations and disasters are not distributed fairly among God's children. God above all knows that. But we do not have to accept our place or our disadvantages, they are a consequence of the way God created things but they are not individually God's intention. Rather His intention is that whatever situation we are in (and even if the main cause is our own fault) God offers His hand to walk alongside, to share our woes and our successes and lead us into some kind of abundant life. No that is not the same as the Prosperity Gospel. If you think God has given you prosperity because you read your Bible and pray every day, you are very very wrong my friend. Have a look at the story of the Pharisee and the Sinner who go to the Temple to pray (Luke 18 vs 9-14). If He has given you prosperity, it is not for you to enjoy, but to use in God's service. Otherwise you will be struggling through the eye of the needle (Matthew 19 v24)  No abundant life is not prosperity, rather a joyful fulfilling life in your situation. In effect nature deals us a hand when we are conceived. It may contain aces, it may not. In the world's terms we may be a winner or a loser. It is down to us how we play that hand and who we get to help us. God will give us the best possible help, if we but open ourselves to His love.

That is easy to say, but not always easy to achieve. We are all afraid of being hurt, either through ill health or by  those around us. Perhaps we are even more afraid when the hurt is not ours but affects someone close to us. Sometimes we must cling with gritted teeth to our faith and trust. And even if God appears to be absent at our time of trouble, when we look back we shall see that He was in fact there. At other times His presence is clear from the beginning. The difference between these situations could be construed as another example of unfairness. In the end we cannot ever fully understand or predict how God will act. However we can know and predict how God wants us to act and so, like Douglas often does, I shall end with part of a hymn.